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Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

bbc.com

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Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#2

Post by tlb »

There's a big penumbra of people who were sort-of killed by heat. For example, I was biking through Europe this August during the heat wave, and one of our group suffered a heart attack. He'll recover, but the paramedics told us that they'd responded to two fatal motorcycle accidents that day, probably caused by the riders getting heatstroke and losing control.

When you include cases like that, and you should if you're trying to figure out how important it is to avoid global heating, the death toll goes way up.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#4

Post by HenryBemis »

> half of those who died were aged over 75

France/Paris has a deeper problem that comes out in these heatwaves. Older people that live alone, with little or no relatives caring for them, and living in flats without air-conditioning, or have low income/pension that they cannot afford an extended heatwave, happen to pass every summer there is a heatwave in Central Europe (which lately is more frequent). I remember hearing/reading about this every couple of years about France, and apparently not much is being done to make this stop.

Re: Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say

#7

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tlb wrote: post #2

There's a big penumbra of people who were sort-of killed by heat. For example, I was biking through Europe this August during the heat wave, and one of our group suffered a heart attack. He'll recover, but the paramedics told us that they'd responded to two fatal motorcycle accidents that day, probably caused by the riders getting heatstroke and losing control. When you include cases like that, and you should if you'…

While I agree that extreme temperatures certainly contribute to the death of people who would not have otherwise died I don't think it's that cut and clear. In many cases of heat death there is shared responsibility. To lump them all together as heat deaths is sensationalist.

If it's 100deg out then you shouldn't be doing things that require massive amounts of PPE. If someone dies because they were improperly clothed for the cold we wouldn't allocate all the blame the cold. If someone decides to swim in 8ft surf we wouldn't allocate all the blame to the wind. Obviously there's specific situations where the ambient temperature is more to blame than not (elderly people without air conditioning being the example that comes to mind) but you can't just lump every death that could have possibly been prevented if it were cooler in as a heat death though. Sure some of them are more heat than personal responsibility but a non-negligible amount of them are more personal responsibility than heat. People need to start thinking about heat the way they think about other severe weather (people in tropical countries already do this) because at this point the climate is going to change a substantial amount whether we like it or not. If there's gonna be a hurricane you cancel your outdoor activity unless you're fine with the risk. The same applies to a heat wave.

I know that this comment combines two things a large subset of people here generally hate but it's my opinion and I stand by it.

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